How to tell your story

when I graduated from college I had two job offers number one I could go abroad to be a nanny in a foreign country for a family with two french-speaking children or number two I could stay home in the United States and join the forces of corporate America and work for Enterprise rent-a-car and sell car insurance and uncomfortable nylons I decided I was not ready for corporate America yet so I went to Belgium to be a french-speaking nanny I remember landing in the airport and I had the first waves of panic I was like oh my gosh I have flown across the world to meet a family that I have never actually met in person and it only had two Skype conversations with are they even real will they even pick me up at the airport they did come find me they were real in this video I am explaining how to tell your story the key components to telling your story when I say your story I do not mean telling people about how you were born in what hospital how much you weighed and when you lost your first tooth I'm talking about how you talk about your career trajectory your work experience your life experience everything that got you to where you are now that's pertinent in a work context how do you talk about your career trajectory in a compelling way in a confident way in a clear way stories about your life and specifically your career start with a crossroads mine started with the opportunity to either live abroad or spend sixty hours a week in close toed shoes a suit from Macy's that didn't fit well I opted to fly to a country where I knew no one I'm Hannah I'm a public speaking coach and I help people like you communicate with confidence clarity and charisma if you're new here be sure to like this video hit the subscribe button so you know when new ones come out and share it with everyone you know let's start with the parameters there are four major parameters when it comes to telling your story number one attention spans according to most articles out there Gen Z's and Millennials have an attention span of roughly 7 to 15 seconds it's not that we're goldfish it's that we make a judgement based on what we see in the first seven to fifteen seconds and if it's not engaging doesn't capture our attention or isn't compelling we move on to the next thing that will engage us that I'll capture our attention that we do find compelling and then we will spend a significant amount of time watching that if you want to learn more about attention spans and how those play into telling specific stories be sure to head over to my channel and check out the video how to tell a killer one-minute story number two engagement be curious with the people that you're talking to we like people that like us so when you say things to someone like thank you so much for asking what a great question I'm so glad that you brought that up I'd love to tell you more about it it makes the people listening feel great we're like oh my gosh they they think me they want to know what I they want to know what I think it's a way of engaging other people and validating that what they've asked is important we like people that like us number three time the length of your story short and sweet is best the real sweet spot time frame is about one to three minutes if you're getting to that five minute mark and you're not in a conversation like you say something someone asks a question if you are straight sharing your story and you're going over the five minute mark that's a problem you need to cut things most people should be able to share how they got to where they are in one to three minutes in fact if you take some celebrities like Mark Cuban he can tell you how he got to where he is in under 10 seconds he'll tell you he went from bartender to billionaire not only is that in the literation but it also shows these extremes of low to high wealth concepts it also gives you a sense of how he got to where he is he must have had extreme work ethic to work hard through the bartender days selling to get to a billionaire status and he must have been smart with his investments in his choices you definitely want to have a Goldilocks style approach to your stories you want to have a small that one minute snippet you want to have the medium which is the just right which is the one you'll use the most often which is about that three minute mark and then the large which is maybe a little bit too large for most situations but you can go to that when you're having more of a conversation with someone that's a back and forth maybe you're on a podcast maybe you've been told that you've got five minutes to share your story so have those Goldilocks timeframes and your stories set and practiced for those three time frames you want to avoid platitudes you do not want to be Karen oh hi I'm Karen and gosh that's such a good question about how I how I started and how I got to where I am you know it's just such a beautiful story and so passionate about the work that I do the people that we help and you know we've really had to work smarter not harder and it took a lot of elbow grease and grit and determination we really had to roll up our sleeves really take a peek behind the curtain to get a sense of where we wanted to go we didn't want to boil the ocean but we we wanted to solve problems and I should really got my noggin thinking there is it gosh was it 2010 or was it 2009 I don't even know if it was junior back in the house you know let me ask Carl Carl Carl well he's not here but gosh I think it must have been 2009 that we started yeah we started our company cats with a Z rule don't actually know what Karen does for a living and we are almost a minute in to what Karen does for a living she runs cats rule we don't actually know what Karen does because she's passionate she loves her job doesn't want to boil the ocean no potta toots don't you spot it it's these rules to how you tell your story apply in an interview setting if you're on a conference call and you're being introduced to a team if you're joining a brand-new team and they want to know all about you if you are meeting someone in public granted you've got six feet of distance these rules and these parameters apply any time you're telling your story the next piece is telling your story which all of you will find to be a little bit obvious after I share it but it's necessary to share is know your audience your audience is the most important person when it comes to how you tell your story because your audience is the person that's perceiving and listening to your message and your audience is the person it's going to take your message and spread that further to other people so what do you want them to say what do you want them to take away from your story that's key and share with other people so let's talk about the critical components that make up your story number one capture the audience's attention get their attention right away the first two to three sentences should capture the audience's attention notice how I started this video I said when I graduated from college I had two job offers number one I could go be a nanny in a foreign country where they didn't speak my language or number two I could join the masses and work for corporate America at Enterprise rent-a-car I showed a dichotomy purposefully between those two options really disparate one of them has nothing to do with the other and as a listener you're thinking hmm my tact is kind of curiosity it's a little bit startling but mainly it makes you wonder here are a few ways that you can consider starting list commonalities or similarities if you have a pretty lengthy work experience group them together in ways that make sense I worked in three different industries over eight years I worked in technology and sales I worked in eyewear in sales and I worked in pharmaceutical sales another approach is solicit challenges that you faced you could say something like you know I really struggled when I graduated from college or I graduated from high school I didn't know what I wanted to do so I kind of hopped around from job to job to job a little bit aimlessly because I just wasn't quite sure on who I was and what I wanted out of work or something like you know I worked in the travel industry for five miserable years I stated my job way too long I didn't realize I could leave I got pressure to stay and then I had an out and I realized there was more to the world than just the travel industry you can explain some self-discovery you can say something like I'm sure like most of you when I was 18 years old I was not doing the same things that I'm doing now but when I was 18 I wanted a job so I started painting houses and painting fences after that I decided to apply for a job at a bakery that was one of the bakers that would arrive at 4:00 a.m. to make all the bread for the bakery after that I realized I really like doing things with my hands so I started drawing and designing things I designed logos images for friends sent me to other friends and then a design agency contracted with me and then eventually hired me I realized early on that it was really critical for me to do something with my hands that was creative and that's the route that I took and followed the next step you want to take after you have immediately engaged your audience is talk about a pivotal crossroad you'll probably have multiples in your story when change happens in our lives in our careers and our personal lives we are kind of at a cliff face we're at a major decision point we're at a juncture we have to decide if we're gonna jump on backwards grab a parachute climb down a rope we have to make a decision so talk about that crossroads and the decision you made and why you are faced with living with your long-term roommates your parents forever or getting a job saving up money and moving out you finish school and you had to decide what next you had two job offers and you had to make a choice between the two you were overlooked for a promotion at work and you didn't feel valued you had to make a choice to stay or to go why did you take the path that you did what motivated you for me I realized that I couldn't put my life on hold forever and live abroad as a nanny so I came back to the United States called up Enterprise rent-a-car and I said are you still hiring would you like to have me they said yes and I was hired I had to pull myself up by my bootstraps go deep down the dark rabbit hole of cars and renting cars and insurance and that enterprise will pick you up this is not an ad just train to say that as you're building and growing your story so you've engaged the audience you're talking about these crossroads and the decisions that you've made you want to weave in the rises and the Thals you want to talk about how you are not superhuman you want to talk about how you made poor choices how you made the wrong choice how you had facepalm moments how you made choices based on what other people wanted the best stories that we hear have a rise and fall for the main character and that's why we love those stories in your own story you want to talk about your own personal successes and failures be sure to talk about how you recovered from your failure though don't just leave it dangling out there like I made a mistake and I never learned from it or I did a bad thing and then never changed after that or I saw someone do something terrible and repeated it and it didn't go well for me huh we want to see that there's growth that you've learned from that experience JK Rowling for example was a struggling single mom living on welfare in the UK and writing her book ideas on a napkin eventually years later she took her fully written book to publishers she was denied 12 times Harry Potter was denied by 12 different publishers before Bloomsbury picked it up we love this story because we see her struggle and her sacrifice and then her skyrocket to success with the Harry Potter series finally after you have engaged the audience come to a crossroads and explained it talked about how you are not superhuman you want to build your credibility so how do you build your credibility in light of the fact that I told you to just talk about all of your failures talk about what you have learned with each decision and choice that you made you learn something you grew you change you made a change in your life based on it take responsibility for the negative results on them I stayed longer at a job than I should have I accepted a job for a lower pay when I should have negotiated better accept the negative results and move forward talk about the experience that you've gained think of telling your story like building a giant Tower of Legos you have these big Legos that you use at the bottom they're the base of your tower these are your core values they're your beliefs these are things like integrity honesty responsibility curiosity credibility willingness to try aptitude in learning now as your Lego tower gets taller you're going to start using smaller blocks but you're using these same smaller blocks over and over and over again they're compounding to get taller these are your skills that you have honed and developed over time throughout your career they're like second nature to you now and they're pretty versatile these are things like being a team player selling analyzing researching building relationships navigating business partnerships and managing projects effectively at the top of the tower you've run out of the same color of those blocks you've consistently used so you now you're using a different color block but it's the same size these are your skills that you have developed and honed over time but they're being used in all sorts of different facets you're being able to manage a team and also maybe using some of those managing skills with your friends in your social circle or maybe at home you're viewed as a leader and you're promoted to leadership roles you manage direct reports you collaborate with cross-functional partners you advise leadership you advise executive leadership you lead business development and you build trust with key internal players people ask me all the time can i flat-out say things like I really learned how to sell products and services when I worked at the marketing agency and the answer is yes absolutely you want to highlight that especially if you've had different careers in different roles you want to highlight the fact that you learned something in one place but you're able to use it somewhere else just like the blocks on the tower in a different color the Legos are your skills and expertise that you have collected throughout your entire career trajectory show them off throughout your story these are my main guiding principles when it comes to how to tell your story take a look at the parameters attention spans engagement strategies time which Goldilocks bucket are you looking at don't use platitudes capture the audience's attention talk about your crossroads be a human being and build your credibility oh it hurt that's all I've got for you today if you'd like to learn more please head over to my channel and hit subscribe to learn more about public speaking storytelling and communication at large be sure to like this video and I will catch you next time

Channel: Hannah Michelotti

Views: 47

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: how to tell a story, how to tell a story with video, storytelling tips, how to tell a story on youtube, how to tell a story in your youtube videos, how to tell a story well, tell a story with video, tell a story on youtube, sunny lenarduzzi, how to script youtube videos, storytelling, how to story tell, how to tell a great story, how to create script for youtube videos, how to get more views on YouTube, how to get more views on your videos, how to tell your story

Id: aNw3e53lj-o

Length: 15min 13sec (913 seconds)

Published: Thu May 14 2020